twenty feet broad.
Why, in God's name, was not the bridge brought on? Instead of the bridge
came news from the rear. The weight of the artillery had been too great
for the bridge, and it was jammed fast. And there they were on a narrow
dyke fifty feet broad, in the midst of the lake, in the dark midnight,
with countless thousands of Indians, around, before, behind, and the lord
have mercy on them!

What followed you may guess--though some of the brave men who fought
there, and who wrote the story themselves--which I have read--hardly
knew.

The cavalry tried to swim their horses over. Some got safe, others
rolled into the lake. The infantry followed pell mell, cut down like
sheep by arrows and stones, by the terrible glass swords of the Indians,
who crowded round their canoes. The waggons prest on the men, the guns
on them, the rear on them again, till in a few minutes the canal was
choked with writhing bodies of men and horses, cannon, gold and treasure
inestimable, over which the survivors scrambled to the further bank.
Cortez, who was helping the rear forded the gap on horseback, and hurried
on to find a third and larger canal which no one dare cross. But the
Indians were not so thick here, and plunging into the water they got
through as they could. And woe that night to the soldier who had laden
himself with Indian treasure. Dragged to the bottom by the weight of
their plunder, hundreds died there drowned by that very gold to find
which they had crossed the seas, and fought so many a bloody battle.

What is the use of making a sad story long? They reached the shore, and
sat down like men desperate and foredone in a great idol temple. Several
of their finest officers, three-fourths of their men, were killed and
missing, three-fourths too of their horses--all Cortez's papers, all
their cannon, all their treasure. They had not even a musket left.
Nothing to face the Indians with but twenty-three crippled horses, a few
damaged crossbows, and their good old swords. Cortez's first question
was for poor Dona Marima, and strange to say she was safe. The trusty
Tlascalan Indians had brought her through it all. Alvarado the
lieutenant was safe too. If he had been the cause of all that misery, he
did his best to make up for it. He stayed behind fighting at the last
canal till all were over, and the Indians closing round him. Then he set
his long lance in the water, and to the astonishment of both armies,